Lived
by goodgirl-astray
Summary: John Winchester's life, as a pawn in the ultimate game. He lived with the painful consequences of the hard choices he had to make. He had the focused attention, the minimal help and the unearthly love of Heaven's least known bureaucrat for most of his life.
1. Chapter 1 - Childhood

The night his father didn't come home, John heard for the first time the little voice inside.

"_You are strong."_

He didn't know where the words came from, but he believed they were true. He had to believe. Not believing would mean that he was weak, that he was a burden for his mother. And he could see how sad Mom was.

He was only four, and he accepted the little voice as a part of him.

John and his mother went to church every Sunday. John said his prayers every night. Mom talked to him about things he sometimes didn't understand. The little voice inside sounded a little like Mom's. Mom told him the angels would always watch over him. It made him feel a little less alone. A little less abandoned.

Sometimes, when it was getting really hard, when he felt like crying, the voice spoke to him, in a tone that was both soothing him and giving him strength.

"_You don't have to be sad. Father had to go away, but Mom needs you. You are strong."_

He believed. John was not raised on hope. He was raised on faith. In the years to come, the voice would be with him at the worst of times. Always giving him strength. Never hope. The little voice never said "let's hope that will happen or that won't happen". The voice always said "you are strong. You are going to get through this."

He spent his childhood on the threshold of poverty. He saw his mother unable to love again, unable to make a new life for herself. His mother firmly believed that something bad had happened to his father. Never did she say anything bad about Henry Winchester, never blamed him for the hardships they endured. The love between them had been so strong, that his mother was certain that something bad had happened to Henry. John was raised with the belief that his father was a good man who would never abandon his family of his own volition.

When he was 10, his grandparents paid them a visit. They looked rich. They offered him the chance of an easy life. With them. Away from his mother. The only reason John hesitated before he refused was to consider if his mother was better off without him.

"_Your mother loves you."_ said the voice.

It was true. His mother would stand being without him for his own good. But loving him also meant that look of happiness on her face when she came home from work, bone tired, but happy to see him, to hug him, to ask him about school. John refused the easy path.

"_You are a good son,"_ the voice said when he was alone in his room that night.

The teenage years passed fast. He went to school, but after school he hung around the garage, learned about engines, and soon was getting paid for helping. He started by sweeping the floor and washing the cars. But he learned. Learned how engines worked. Learned about being a man from men who were not his father.


	2. Chapter 2 - War

**War**

When the war came, John Winchester volunteered. He was accepted as a mechanic, but during basic training the drill sergeant noticed him. They saw the killer instinct the young man did not know he had. When they shipped him, it was to fight, not fix the Army jeeps.

The voice was with him in the Vietnam jungle, and when he had to make hard choices, life and death choices about his fellow marines. The voice gave him the strength to leave a marine wounded beyond any reasonable probability to recover and to save the lives of an entire Vietnamese family. It felt as the right choice even when they looked at him with something very much like hatred. He learned to accept that he had to do the right thing without expecting gratitude.

When he came back to the States and resumed the semblance of a normal life, John made a dungeon in his mind, and locked the war in there. He locked the voice in there, too. He wanted to be a good man, with a good life, and his only recourse to strength to be when he was working on car engines.


	3. Chapter 3 - Mary

**Mary**

When Mary appeared in his life, the voice was forgotten. He was happy. Mary was bright and strong. Mary was sunshine and John was sure that he didn't need to be strong for her as he had had to be ever since he was a little boy. With Mary, life was all sun and smiles. Even when money was tight. Even when her family looked down on him for some reason. John wondered if it was the stench of the things he had to do in the war that came through his nice, polished appearance. The appearance was not a lie. He was happy and willing to think the best of people. But he had seen his darker side. He had done dark deeds.

The night Mary died, the voice came back. And, like never before, it spoke to him of anger and revenge. It spoke to him of using his strength to hunt down the thing that ended the woman he loved. From that night on, the voice sounded like Mary's most of the time. For years after that, the voice spoke to him of protecting his family at all costs. Protecting his sons with the cost of their childhood.

"_They have to be able defend themselves. Monsters don't wait for children to grow up."_

Although the voice was saying words that Mary herself never said, and sometimes the opposite of things Mary had said while she was alive, John allowed it to feed his lust for revenge.

When he was faced with the situation that no parent should ever face, the death of his son, John sold his soul. The voice was silent when he made the choice. He had only a sharp sensation of cold in the unusual silence.


	4. Chapter 4 - Hell

**Hell**

Time had no meaning. There was only pain. Even the lack of pain was used to cause him suffering. When he would get to the point when he no longer felt pain, too numb from the torture, the demon left, and let him recover just enough so he can be hurt again.

When the demon offered him the choice, John found a strange emptiness inside. And in that utter lack of anything, he listened for the voice.

"_You are strong."_

It sounded like his voice this time, but for the first time, John was sure that it was not a part of him. Not his conscience, not his inner motivator, not the memory of his mother or his wife. And if he needed any more proof, he saw the demon's reaction. Alastair started looking around, listening intently, trying to grasp something he could just about sense.

The three words gave him the certainty that he was going to break free. He was not going to spend eternity in this corner of hell. And just as before, it wasn't hope that sprung. It was faith. A faith so strong that the demon started to howl and curse loudly in an old language John didn't need to understand to know that Alastair was frustrated, that the demon felt his methods failing.

The voice whispered to him, sounding like Mom and like Mary.

"_You will not let darkness inside. They took your father. They took Mary. They chose your son for their dark purposes. They want to turn you into one of them and make you hurt your family. You are strong, John. Don't let the darkness in. Never let the darkness in."_

After that, pain got worse and worse, but John was able to bear it. Each time they offered him the knife, the voice would whisper to him.

"_They cannot win if you don't let them. They have never seen strength such as yours."_

Even with this strange and unexplainable help, John was nearing his breaking point.

"_The time is close. Be ready!"_

When the demon left, to give him time to heal enough for the next torture session, John tugged at the chains, as he did every time he was left alone. This time he felt the difference. The chains that held him began to break. He pulled, and kept pulling while the pain was getting worse.

He walked out of that dungeon as if he were enveloped in mist. The demons that swarmed all over the place were not seeing him. He reached the edge and looked up. The walls of the pit were almost vertical, but he did not look back. Did not hesitate. He started climbing without giving as much as a thought to the demons that would tear him apart if they saw him.

He climbed, leaving his blood on the jagged rocks. By the time he reached the top, some of his fingers had almost no flesh on them. For the first time, he was sensing something other than the voice. He heard a faint rustle of feathers. And the brimstone filled air had a tinge of something else. Out of nowhere came the image of snow falling gently. He allowed the smell of imaginary snowflakes to overpower the brimstone. Along with the image of snow, came a sensation of coolness, giving him respite from the heat of the furnaces that burned below him in the pit.

When he reached the edge of the pit, his strength was almost gone. He extended a hand into thin air, and, as a miracle, he felt an unseen hand gripping it. Helping him all the way up. Just at that moment, Hell's gates opened, and John found himself back on Earth. He saw his sons, for the briefest of moments. And smiled.


	5. Chapter 5 - Heaven

**Heaven**

John saw his sons, for the briefest of moments. And smiled. There would be no sight more wonderful to him even if he hadn't just clawed his way up from the depths of hell.

He ascended, still smiling. After seeing his sons, Heaven was almost a let down. Until he saw Mary. They did not speak for the longest time. Just held each other. The air seemed to sing around them. Their love for one another brought such light into his tormented soul, John felt unable to deal with it. He couldn't call it pain, but it was just... too much. Too much light after such a long time in darkness.

Mary smiled, and kissed him. She took him by the hand and they walked into a replica of their house. She had died twice in that house, but there was no trace of darkness. The very walls of the house seemed to be made out of love.

Time was passing just as strangely in Heaven as in Hell. He didn't know how long it took until he accepted the reality of his afterlife. He and Mary were on the porch, the tree in front of their house was in blooms, when she told him:

"There's someone who wants to talk to you."

The first reaction was to be weary. He wondered briefly which of the many people who had died before him would be so polite as to wait for an introduction from Mary. He didn't need to ask her who it was. Or if she thought it would be a good idea for him to talk to this person. Mary wouldn't have said it if she didn't think that he should accept the request.

He nodded, and Mary kissed his cheek before walking into the house.

A woman materialized in front of him on the porch. She looked ordinary. Forgettable. But John, the hunter, did not forget a face, and he knew that he had never met this person.

"Hello, John," she said.

John had to close his eyes at the sound of _the voice_. The stranger's voice sounded just as ordinary as the woman who had spoken, but in it he could discern all the shades of the voice that had been his companion.

"I expected you to be a demon," John said.

Naomi bowed her head. With her gaze on the ground, she spoke.

"It was the best way I could find to keep you... strong."

John flinched at the word. The word that had been the leitmotif of his life to the point where its meaning had become pain. He had been strong for his mother. For his sons. For the entire human race. And what had he gotten in return? Hardships and challenges. Always harder, darker challenges. Death, pain, and dark destinies for his sons. As if she could hear his thoughts, Naomi looked at him and spoke in the voice that had accompanied him for most of his life.

"You are in Heaven now, John. Nothing bad will ever happen to you again. You are with Mary. Your sons will be here in the fullness of time."

He wanted to scream at her. To get back at her for all the times when her words had been all that tethered him to sanity. All that stopped him from giving in to the darkness that was rising all around him, reaching his soul. But there was no point. She was right. All was in the past. All his choices led him to this point.

After that, Naomi made herself available to him and Mary. Answered their questions. Gave them explanations. Talked to them about the connections between souls, the bond which sometimes existed between mortal souls and soulless angels. Told them about Cupid and about soul mates. Told them about reincarnation. About soul mates finding one another on Earth. Told them about destiny and the almost perfect immutability of a path. And above all, she told them that souls are precious. Strong. That the only way the Enemy has to darken a soul is through trickery. Through lies and darkness thrown in the path. The only way to lose is to make a choice of free will.

If John and Mary hadn't been hunters, they might not have noticed that it was unusual to be visited by an angel. They didn't need to be trained hunters to realize that she was telling them very much very soon. As if time was running out. Which was strange, because time had so little meaning in Heaven.

When they became more familiar with Heaven, they discovered more about how special Naomi was. Not one of the archangels. Not even a seraph. And yet, none of the mortal souls they met in Heaven had heard of her. The angels knew of her, but they got a slightly glazed expression when they answered their questions about Naomi. As if they were trying to remember something long forgotten.

The friendship between Mary and Naomi almost bothered him. He had a hard time accepting just how close they were, how easily Mary seemed to have accepted Naomi's influence over their lives. Because he learned just how much Naomi had been involved in their lives.

It was long after the moment John had met _the voice_, when Naomi died and all the angels fell, that John truly forgave her. He was walking hand in hand with Mary, in the eternally sunny garden they had chosen to place near the replica of their house.

"She was a friend to us," Mary said.

John understood whom his wife was talking about. He took a moment before answering, although he had often thought about Naomi's influence over his life.

"She still is."

Mary smiled at him and squeezed his hand fondly.

"You don't believe she is dead, either!"

John smiled back.

"That conniving angel was able to reach into Alastair's torture chamber to whisper in my ear. I don't believe that some nerd of an angel can end her."

"John," Mary asked. "Do you think it's time for us to live again?"

John Winchester thought back at his life. There was a lot of pain and many losses. But the best of him, the results of his union with his soul mate, were still on Earth. And despite what Naomi had said, they were both in danger of not reaching Heaven. He thought about Naomi, about her patience and her plans. Their boys deserved to get to Heaven and it was his duty to help them if he could. He wouldn't put it past the strange angel that all the things she had taught them since they met in Heaven to be just another part of another plan. Maybe the only way the boys would get to Heaven was for the two of them to go back down. To live again.

He held Mary's hand, looked in her eyes and accepted.

"Yes."

And, with the knowledge Naomi had given them, once again, they both lived.


End file.
